Rusty the SJ413

[Sausager]

Last weekend I picked me up a steal. After months of looking I found a single cab flat deck SJ413 in Wellington which was cheaper than cheap - $325. All she needs is the body and fuel tank bolted back on. The seller also said that the reason he was selling her was because she was so rusty. Turns out most of the rust is in the body panels. The chassis is sweet, and all the running gear works as far as I'm told, and came with 4x nearly brand new AT tyres.

I picked her up and took her home.

She now sits on a lean in the garage because one side has been raised 50mm and the other hasn't.



The back end as it sits now. I'll throw an Aluminium checker plate floor on there and then the fuel tank on top to stop it getting hammered.


The interior is so dusty from when the previous owner buffed all the bog from the single cab conversion off one side. First thing I did when she got home was pulled the carpets out - they were full of dog hair, and I'm allergic to dogs.


Plan at this stage is to get her going and then build an A frame so I can tow her around and then learn how to drive her!

[3VILC]

Nice mate. Glad to see you patience finally paid off and you managed to find one Its a runner then I take it too? Should be much less work than mine then haha

[catalystracing]

Nice, you will enjoy tinkering on that, it looks like a real good foundation to start with.

[Sausager]

Nice mate. Glad to see you patience finally paid off and you managed to find one Its a runner then I take it too? Should be much less work than mine then haha

Yes it is a runner, or so the previous owner said. It last ran 3 months ago. I've had a brief look over the motor and I've no reason to believe it's not a runner.

Nice, you will enjoy tinkering on that, it looks like a real good foundation to start with.

Cheers. I certainly will have fun!

I took some more photos yesterday.

This is where the back has been welded to the front when it was shortened. Previous owner pulled all the bog out and was going to tidy it up. He made these horrid welds and then gave up. ...and there's lots of rust!




The other side that still has all the bog in it


And the heart of the beast! Was white from factory, then was painted blue. Now she's green.


This is how I'd like to do the back end. Checker plate is the 'original' floor so it's already cut to suit the guards. I'd like to get a basic rollbar hoop made up because of the tendency of these things to lie down as well, so that will fit in there somewhere too. Any ideas of where I can get a basic hoop?


Progress will be slow at the moment because of my 4wd park ...err, I mean ...retaining wall project

[Sausager]

So I have been a little busy, finding time between digging and normal life.

The guy I bought this off had started the body lift. He only had a few mounts in and had lost the rest. So I got some 50mm spacers cut at work and painted them. I also made up some brackets to help strengthen the front body mounts under the headlight as this was all rusted out and had had a poor fibreglassing job done previously.

I also bought the necessary parts to connect up my fuel tank again. Choice.

Parts all painted, ready to go:


Front Left and right. Rust and no strength in the area.



And fixed, with strengthening plate top and bottom and the body mount actually supporting the body!


I also fit the fuel tank (no pics) and then cranked it over and she roared into life straight away! I couldn't believe it. I took her for a hoon around our grove way too late at night with only half an exhaust (he other half rusted off haha) and then played on my front lawn. It was all so exciting haha.

I have since taken the rear bumper off, mounted the rear checker plate floor, cut a slot out of the front of the hole in the floor for the transfer case lever, etc.

I'm all ready for a play on the weekend Can't wait to get some seat time and learn how to drive the girl!

[3VILC]

Looking good mate. Jealous now..wish mine was ready to go for a run
Rust didnt look too bad..common place.. nothing compared to mine:

Although Ive got no radiator or inner guards so not really any weight up the front anyway. Looks like yours has got the trusty body rubbers cut from rubber conveyor belt like mine haha.
Did that bush turn up OK? Might go for a drive down to work see if my wheels turned up then I can put tyres back on

[Sausager]

Yeah man, turned up Yesterday. Will throw that on on Monday before our play in the afternoon. Cheers for that.

[Sausager]

We had a long weekend down here in Wellington this weekend. I made the most of an extra day!

I pulled Rusty out of the garage on Monday, and did some general tidy up and sorted out some little things. I need to match the green paint to cover the silly red (previous owner) and the primer grey too (previous owner left it bare steel. These things don't need any help rusting).



This is how she stood at the beginning of the day. Then I took her for a drive on a private farm - my first shakedown run.



She went incredibly well, I couldn't believe it. Went well all day and went over anything I pointer her at. She got bogged easily (AT tyres for ya), but banks and ledges, twisty stuff etc are just no problem.

After a good run for a few hours, a few things have been made apparent. I now have a list:
-She idles really high (around 2k) and overfuelling pretty bad to the point where it would bog down and lose power - fixed by a bit of right foot jandal. I'm missing one vacuum hose on the carb and the choke (inside the cab) is stuck open. I'll sort them out and hopefully that will sort it.
-The battery terminals are loose too, causing a bit of intermittent stuttering. I'll buy/make some shims to sort that out.
-The exhaust finishes right next to the transfer case. The rest rusted off. But because the body is so holy, it was full of fumes the whole time we were driving. I'll need to run the exhaust somewhere else.
-At the end of the day, the clutch was slipping really badly. Is this because it got wet/muddy from bogging? What's the fix for that?
-I need to drive with more fuel in the tank. The pickup was dry when on a lean a few times, which is a pain!
-So so so bumpy. Buy a neck brace haha.

And a pic for my own reference

[Sausager]

Wow, a lot has changed on this! Where do I start?!

I removed the ply that was lining the back of the cab, and replaced it with aluminium checkerplate. No photos of that.

I also found out why it wasn’t running right.



Turns out the fuel tank was rusty, so had a rusty sludge in the bottom of it, which the filter proceeded to suck up. The filter itself wasn’t even attached to the housing anymore, so the fuel was simply flowing past it into the carb. So I stripped the carb down and cleaned that up too.



About this time too, I had bought a SWB vitara to wreck. I sold the motor for more than I paid for the car. Free parts now!



First to go into Rusty was the choke cable, because mine was seized open. The second thing was the fuel tank. The SJ one was too rusty to be worth mucking around with, so I used the vitara one. It was pretty much a plug and play which was perfect.



Around this time I also added a rear tow hook and welded the exhaust back together. I also added some armour to the bottom of the muffler to keep it from getting snagged or dented.

Next up was the power steering. So first it was off with the old.



I made a wedge to adapt the vitara steering box to the chassis rail



And then bolted it on.



It all fit perfectly, except that the new box sits a little bit high so the top of the drag link end just hits the bottom of the chassis rail. Easy fix. I also made a mount for the power steering pump to bolt to the block, modified the radiator supports, and got it all up and running. What an incredible difference power steering makes! Effortless steering now. I also changed the SJ wheel to the vitara one.



Next up was a bit of a more major mission – Vitara ring and pinions into the SJ diff heads.







This is also going in at the same time



It’s a locker which will lock one axle shaft to the spider carrier. I’ll actuate it with a handbrake cable from the Vitara. This setup was made by a friend of mine years ago.

So this bit…



…goes here…



…and works like this.



I also scored some 30” couragias nice and cheap.



These will be going onto a set of standard 15x5.5 SJ steelies. I’ve started cutting the centres out of the rims and then will flip them and weld them back in for some more offset. Maybe a bit unnecessary with 30s, but it will definitely keep me more stable, which can’t be a bad thing.

And that brings me to where I am up to today. Next on the list is modify the rear diff housing to accept the locker and make that all work. Then put it all back together. I’ll keep this updated with more progress.

[3VILC]

Wow you've certainly made some good progress there mate. Yup that's definitely why it wouldn't have been running well haha. Power steer must be a nice add-on! Mines a bit of a handful with 31s and Armstrong steering lol

[Checkerhead]

And this thread just "encouraged" me to update my SJ413 build thread

Lol, just saw your locker post somewhere on FB last night. Much better write up on here. I Appreciate it man!

[Sausager]

Progress on cutting the centres out. Not a fun job.

[3VILC]

Indeed it is not! You got further than me I gave up after hacking at one wheel and welded it back up before I wrecked it lol..chucked some spacers in instead. You won't regret the extra offset tho. Good to see you've finally got some time to get into it, glad I got mine usable as most of the time in the last month or so was spent doing an unplanned engine conversion in the daily after that blew up

[1kz_surf]

we need to go wheeling hahaha

[Sausager]

So I have been slowly chipping away at this. I finished cutting out the centres of the wheels, and then flipped and rewelded them.

I made a basic jig that the centre sat on and held the centre flat and high enough that when the rim was put on top of it and lightly tapped into place, there was a small gap between the bench and the rim. This allowed me to get the gap the same the whole way around the rim, and thus the rim square to the centre. Then I flipped the rim and checked the face of the centre against the rim again for final tweaks. Then I tacked it in place, checked it again and welded.







Rinse, dress, repeat x4. And then I painted them matte black, with two coats of this:




I’ve also been working on the difflock. It’s been a bit of a brain bender, but I’ve got it all sorted and I know how I’m going to do it all. The fork is mounted to a shaft which I have made a little box for. The shaft slides back and forwards with the fork in the box. This box will sit above the dog splined to the axle, and will actuate the locking – controlled by the Vitara handbrake cable. I’ve had to cut the housing away to suit the box, and will weld it in there. I’ll rely on the spring on the handbrake cable to lock the dog to the spider carrier, and will pull it out to free it. All of the hard stuff is done. I just need to make a lid for the box (which will be clear plastic) and make the cable mounting bits. Hopefully the pics will clear it up…





Slowly but surely getting there!

[Swamped]

Looks like an interesting idea. Is there anything retaining that collar if you have to remove the axle for any reason? Looks like it might drop in the housing if you pull the axle and be a huge mongrel to install unless your able to remove the shift fork mech and hold the collar during axle install?
Either way it could be a fun job esp if you had to do it in the field.

[Sausager]

Looks like an interesting idea. Is there anything retaining that collar if you have to remove the axle for any reason? Looks like it might drop in the housing if you pull the axle and be a huge mongrel to install unless your able to remove the shift fork mech and hold the collar during axle install?
Either way it could be a fun job esp if you had to do it in the field.

I’ve thought about this but I haven’t done anything about it haha. No, there’s nothing retaining the collar. And yes, it will be a pain if I have to remove the axle. The fork can come out through the acrylic lid I plan to put on top of the box, and I figure that I’ll be able to guide the axle into the collar through the hole in the box. It would be a pain, but is definitely doable I think. I may spare a bit more thought for it though, because now is the best time to do something about it!

I’m also tossing up doing a diff shave now too, while it’s out and on the bench. But then again I do want it all back together and running again!

[Sausager]

So I decided to do the diff shave. I'm not finished, but I am well committed

[Sausager]

I'm still moving with this! Slowly but surely. The rear diff shave is done. I welded a piece of 5mm Hardox in there. More than ample I think, and I'm happy with how it turned out.



The diff lock is all finished too. I thought I'd put a perspex cap on top, out of interest's sake. Perspex is super tough, and gives me visibility of what's going on in there. I'm also the only person I know who has a window on their diff haha.








I'll hopefully get the diff installed again in the next few days, get the front diff back together as well, tyres mounted on my rims, and then get into some driving! I still need to make up a lever mechanism to actuate the diff lock. In the meantime, I can do that manually.

Next on the list after that is rear discs. Shouldn't be too hard...

[De-Ranged]

Dam those zuke axles shave impressively well, that is alot of gain from the shave!.... is some of that from your gear change, are the vit gears smaller?
Small diffs and that sort of gain.... kinda makes me re-think swopping these axles out lol

Don 't know about the Hardox plate.... did you burn it with mild, my experience with these plates (mainly Bisalloy) is they do weld with mild but in impact situations they will crack along the edge of the weld, I only weld it now with a Lo-Hy High tensile rod that weldwell recommended (sorry can't remember the number code will check if you want)
That said I was using it on logging gear lol

Looking forward to more

[Sausager]

Yeah, I gained just under an inch of ground clearance. That's with a 2 or 3mm gap between the crown wheel and the top of the plate. The Vitara and SJ crown wheels are the same diameter, so no gain there.

The Hardox will be fine. Its a lot more workshop friendly than any other wearplate because it's a lot cleaner than other steels - especially in the thinner stuff. So that means it's super tough and welds really well. I'm not concerned about it cracking. In Hardox's case, low hydrogen rods are good for the harder grades, but not necessary with the 450 which is what I've got here

Thanks for the comment - its nice to know that people are reading haha.

[Sausager]

So I have Rusty back in one piece, and I drove it last night for the first time in over 6 months! The front diff is all back together, the rear diff is in the truck with the cable locker in. I’ve made a lever system to actuate the cable locker too. It needs a bit of refining, then painting and mounting in the cab. I have tested it and it does work very well which I’m stoked about. The tyres are also mounted on the rims I flipped the centres in, and are now on the truck and look awesome. The thermostat housing was leaking too, so I replaced the gasket with some new paper and some glue.

Now onto some pics!

Tyres mounted. 30 x 9.5, r15 on 5.5 inch wide rims


The thermostat housing was leaking, so I fixed that with new gasket paper and some glue



Making the lever assembly. A plasma cutter at work makes this easy haha







And making the handle




I also added some friction washers to take up some slack in the assembly and also make it actuate smoothly. Cut from a milk bottle haha


This is how it looks assembled in the “diff locked” position. The bolts are a bit long still, but I’ll trim them down


Here it is with the cable and in the “diff open” position.


I’m in the middle of converting to rear discs using SWB vitara front rotors and calipers. There’s a bit of stuff to make for that, but it’s all pretty easy. Off with this crap!


And Rusty with her new shoes on!



Next on the list is getting her to run right. The carb is still playing up and making it run like a bag of crap. I have an “unknown condition” spare carb here I can try on it, but other than that I’m open to suggestions?!

The handbrake also no longer works, and I think it’s also dragging pretty badly. The truck doesn’t roll backwards/forwards very freely, and I presume it’s the handbrake. I guess I’ll have to take it off and have a look.

[Checkerhead]

Looking good mate. That diff shave gives an impressive gain! I'll be happy if mine is half that good.

[Sausager]

A little bit of progress to report. I've got most of the stuff I need for the rear disc conversion. It started with turning the rear drums into spacers to hold the discs onto the axles.

No lathe? No problem


On a side note, here you can see the cable coming out of the locker too. I'm yet to properly mount that, along with the lever. But back to rear discs...

...except big problem, because it didn't work haha. I got most of the way through and then the cutoff disc started grabbing because the slot got too deep. So off to my friend's place to use his lathe. The (blurry) end result


I also made these.


Which, when all assembled as a test fit, gives me this



And then I got my local cert guy in to inspect it


So all that's left to do is to throw some paint onto the bits and plumb it all up.

And I ordered a set of spring and shackle bushes too! The old ones are non-existent haha. That'd explain why it was such a bumpy ride...

[wjw]

And then I got my local cert guy in to inspect it

Love the safety foot wear....

but on a cautionary note, my kids know to where something round the garage as two of them have had metal splinters in their feet They only listen when it hurts, and even then they have to repeat a few times.

[1kz_surf]

maaaaatteeee thats so sweet ! ill give ya a ring later on about these bucket seats ive got would look sweet in the wee zook!!!!

diff shave is now on my to do list lol

[Sausager]

A good bit has changed since updating last.

The first thing I did was finish the brakes. So I painted the brackets and mounted everything up.




I had to get this made to tee up the brake lines:


Then bled them and tested them. Pedal feel is spongy due to the bigger piston surface area, but they stop the car really well. It’s a win in my books. The only problem I have is that the tee piece is just sitting on top of the diff and isn’t mounted in any way. If I had a bit of foresight I would have welded a nut on top of the diff to bolt the tee to. And alas, no welder at home. I’m going to have to come up with a different solution somehow…

Then I got onto fitting those spring eye bushes. This is what the old ones looked like:




The crush tubes were frozen tight to the bolts, so I had to cut them off. They were also very not round any more!


And the original bush sleeves were stuck too, so I had to cut them out


Checkerhead turned up some new crush tubes for me (Thanks Arron)


And all fitted and well greased, it looks (and drives) a billion times better! Job done.


I also finished and fitted the lever for the locker. I made this from scratch and it took a good bit of time to calculate the correct throw to get me the correct cable pull distance. But it all worked out perfectly first time, so I was stoked with that! It all sits next to the handbrake lever. When in the locked position, the handle is upright and just touches the driver’s seat, so it’s nicely out of the way.





And the cable runs out the back of the cab with a protective sleeve around it to stop any damage from rubbing.


The original rubber boot even serves a nice purpose haha


Next up was lifting the transfer. 50 x 50 x 50mm cubes.


10.5mm hole on one side and a threaded M12 on the other. I planned to drill out the original 10mm hole in the chassis to fit a 12mm bolt which I’d wind into the lift block. I’d then put a locking nut onto the back of the bolt to keep everything nice and tight.


And painted


Installation was ridiculously easy. Half hour job, no jack required.


Lifting by 50mm was enough to get the transfer above the chassis rails, so I was stoked with that. No pics sorry.

I also adjusted all of the tappets because at least one was a little noisy. No more ticking = another win.


I broke an indicator off last time I was out, so I blanked both indicators off too, just to keep everything nice and out of the way.


My next brainchild was installing a window washer. Rusty never had one, so I planned to use one off the Vitara I wrecked. This has two pumps – one for the windscreen and one for the back window. I’m going to use both for the windscreen. So first I wired up the plugs with flash crimp on connectors, etc to suit the single plug


And then made up some small brackets and mounted it close to the factory location. I’m presuming it is anyway haha.



This is yet to be completed. I have made my own squirters (one from each pump) and ran new tubing up through the windscreen drain gutter. I’ll get pics next time. The squirters need tidying up, painting and mounting yet.

Next on the list is to have another look at the exhaust, a front tow hook and some mud!

And some poser shots to finish with

[Checkerhead]

Looking good mate. Cheers. for the update. Nice to see what it was I did for you as well. Hope you get a chance to get out for a play in the near future.
Tomorrow is the first day of my uni break so you might actually get to see some finished (ish) pics of what you did for me soon.

[Sausager]

As per usual, a fair bit has changed since the last update.

I did a few little things - like added a tow hook on the front, and a few other bits and pieces


I tried and tried to get the thing running right, and I just couldn’t. I had two carbs - one that ran sweet but wouldn’t idle and the other that idled but wouldn’t run well. So I tried to combine the two to get one to work, and I tried to tune both to get either one to work, but it was all a big fail in the end.

And then this happened for $800.


And under the bonnet was this brilliant piece of engineering, so a rather unoriginal but failsafe plan was hatched. Sell parts to then end up with a free motor to stick into the SJ.


I got straight into it. One of the first parts that I sold off the vehicle was the body, so that made the rest of it really easy to work on. Then the gearbox went, so I dummy fitted an SJ one on there.


I figured that it wouldn’t be too hard to make an adaptor to mate the gearbox to the motor, so I got onto it.



...aaaand done.


Fits like a gem and didn’t cost anything.

I changed the cambelt on the 1600 because it was easier to do it now than it ever would be. I’m glad I did too, because the old one was knackered.



Then this...


...turned into this…


...because this happened.


So I modified the pickups and sumps because that’s what you do.


G13 pickup with the mount removed. The old mount doesn’t line up in the g16.


G16 pickup with the oil pump spigot removed. This is a tight fit over the g13 pickup oil pump spigot


Weld the g16 spigot onto the g13 pickup. Easy.


I also made a custom mount for the pickup to bolt to the bottom of the g16 bearing block. No pics.

Then came the wiring. This is what I started with.


I took my time spread out on the lounge floor, and I had an A3 printout of a wiring diagram which I laminated, and that worked a treat. I do wish that I had labelled more when I removed the loom from the vitara. Live and learn.

I also put the Vitara fuel line into the SJ. It fits amazingly well, and there was even clips along the chassis rail to hold it in place. Win.

Then I made a custom LH side engine mount. Old vs new






Then onto the clutch. MP Autoparts in Upper Hutt sorted me out for this and did an awesome job. I highly recommend them. I got a new clutch, flywheel grind, new spigot and release bearings and new pressure plate. They had 4 different brands of pressure plate in stock, so they tested all 4 of them for the best clamp pressure. I ended up with one that has 10% better clamp pressure than standard, so that should give me a good bit more bite.


And my ring gear looks like this.


So I pulled it off and will replace it with a better one from a flywheel my friend gave me.

And that is where I am now. Now that I have the clutch sorted I can put the motor back in and start putting the modified loom back in - and then get into it.

[Checkerhead]

Awesome progress.
As usual good work and write up (and as usual nothing has changed on mine).
Keep it up mate.